Bitcoin 2025 Recap: Guarded Optimism
Bitcoin took traders on a rollercoaster in 2025. The year opened with ETF‑driven enthusiasm, only to plunge toward $74K in April’s capitulation. By October, a new all‑time high briefly reignited excitement, but the momentum faded quickly as November turned euphoria into capitulation and forced the market to reset before year‑end.
Disclaimers: This content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. Please conduct your own research before making investment decisions. Unless otherwise specified, all insights and figures in this article are powered by official Bitget API data (as of December 22, 2025 at 0:00:00 UTC).
The ETF Euphoria (Trap) in January
Bitcoin price went from $94,439.99 as the opening price of January 01, 2025 to the new ATH of $109,599 on January 19 (+16%). The AUM of Bitcoin ETFs went from $108,984,349,335 on January 01 to $125,010,286,925 on February 01, 2025 (Source: CoinMarketCap), which translates to a demand increase of 15% in just a month. Yes, the Bitcoin fever demonstrated a spillover from Bitcoin’s previous ATH (December 2024).
It’s important, though, that the price barely moved at the end of the exact day where Bitcoin made a new ATH: only +0.01% from $104,921 at open to $104,933.36 at close. Yet spot and perps volume combined hit their 2025 peak at $37.5 billion, or 3.7x the daily average of this year.
Source: Bitget Academy
Key implications: High volume with no net price change suggests large players offloaded positions to retail demand. Institutions might have used the ATH to rebalance, while retail enthusiasm absorbed the supply. That points to ultra‑tight market efficiency: arbitrage across spot, perps, and delivery kept prices aligned, meaning Bitget markets remained stable despite rebalancing. At the same time, retail gets a chance to interpret institutional flows and position accordingly; the generalized formula is: flat price + huge volume = distribution signal.
The "Terror Bottom" at $74,522 in April
Bitcoin’s April 2025 drop was driven by a combination of miner selling pressure, macro disinflation signals, and institutional rebalancing after January’s ATH. The Miners’ Position Index (MPI) shows elevated outflows around this time, confirming that miners contributed to the supply-side pressure.
Source: CryptoQuant
According to CryptoQuant, high MPI values often precede price corrections, especially when combined with macro uncertainty (Trump’s tariffs and the trade war despite cooling inflation in the US/UK). MPI spiked above the red threshold (MPI > 2) in early April, indicating aggressive BTC outflows from miner wallets to cover costs or lock in gains. Hence, Bitcoin fell to the yearly low on April 06, 2025 ($74,522) - a drop of 21% from 2025 opening price and 32% from the newest ATH. This was the deepest price trough of 2025, driven by macro disinflation, miner selling, and retail capitulation after the ETF hype faded.
On April 6, daily trading volume spiked to $33.1B (the highest in Q2 2025), marking a huge capitulation event as panic selling met institutional buying. At the same time, the average perpetual basis for April was −4.83 bps, i.e. futures consistently traded below spot. This negative spread reveals how traders were positioned defensively, either shorting perpetuals outright or using them to hedge against further downside risk.
The efficiency of Bitget's integrated market structure (spot, perps, and delivery) compressed volatility into a temporary flush rather than a prolonged breakdown. By month‑end, Bitcoin had already rebounded +13.6% and entered the six‑month path to October’s new ATH.
Key implications: Large-sized turnover at the bottom signaled a liquidity transfer: weak hands exited, strong hands accumulated. The negative basis confirmed defensive positioning, which is healthy in capitulation phases, as it creates conditions for a resilient rebound.
The Low-Conviction ATH in October
Bitcoin made a new record again on October 06, 2025 at $126,200. That is a 69.3% surge from April’s trough and 33.6% from the year’s opening. However, this didn’t result in a new hype; the new ATH immediately faced rejection when BTC closed the day at $121,856.91 (-2.52% from the opening price). In addition, BTC ended the month 6.05% lower than the beginning of October at $110,310.62. In other words, the breakout might look euphoric, but conviction collapsed instantly.
The spot-perp basis remained below 0 for most of 2025, meaning BTC perps consistently traded at a discount compared to spot prices despite the two new ATHs this year. The spot-perp basis turned positive shortly in January but barely moved on October 06. At -0.0488%, it’s only slightly lower than October’s average at −0.0506% and still higher than the 2025 average at -0.0426%. This signals skepticism throughout the year, regardless of the upward momentum, because the majority of traders leaned on perpetuals as a hedging tool rather than chasing the rally.
Source: Bitget Academy
Now let’s take a look at our delivery futures contracts. Perpetual futures, or perps, reflect short‑term sentiment, since they trade continuously and funding keeps positions balanced; a negative basis therefore shows skepticism or hedging against immediate upside. Delivery contracts (like Bitget’s 6‑month BTCUSD1226) capture forward conviction, with their premium or compression signaling how much smart money is willing to pay for longer‑term exposure. By looking at both side by side, we can determine whether momentum is trusted in the short run and sustained in the trend.
Source: Bitget Academy
Spot-perp basis already demonstrates how there was no shift in short‑term conviction, even at the peak. This lack of immediate belief was mirrored in the forward curve, for delivery premiums began compressing rapidly from August onward, thereby signaling that forward conviction was already weakening well before the October peak. Between the September monthly average of 1.95% and October’s 1.27%, the delivery premium fell by 0.68 points in just one month, a sharper decline than the earlier July-August drop of 0.44 points (from 3.25% to 2.81%). The slope then accelerated further from October to November through a one-month collapse of 0.82 points. Importantly, even on October 6 (the day of the newest ATH), the delivery premium stood at 1.93%, which is already down by nearly 60% from July’s peak of 3.84%. This sequence shows how the monthly averages confirm that forward conviction was eroding much faster than the natural convergence toward expiry, with October marking the transition into high‑speed compression.
Key implications: October’s ATH was less a sign of renewed hype than a terminal exit point, where both short‑term and forward indicators confirmed that smart money hedged in the short run and abandoned forward exposure in the medium run.
The November Stress Test
November 2025 became Bitcoin’s defining stress test that proved how integrated infrastructure can handle volatility. Bitcoin fell -23.23% for the month, dropping from $110,310 to $84,680 and marking 2025’s worst monthly performance. The pressure heightened on November 20, when BTC touched $80,650, its lowest point since April and a -36.09% decline from October’s ATH. That single day delivered a -7.72% loss and a 10.30% intraday range. It was classic capitulation: maximum volatility met maximum volume as weak hands exited and patient capital absorbed the panic.
Source: Bitget Academy
What’s remarkable is how Bitget’s integrated spot‑perp‑delivery framework maintained efficiency throughout the decline. The spot‑perp basis averaged -0.0424% with an exceptionally tight 0.0133% standard deviation, showing no dislocation even on November 20. Arbitrage kept perpetuals aligned with spot despite 10% intraday swings. Meanwhile, the delivery premium compressed from 1.05% at the start of November to 0.24% by month‑end, i.e. a predictable convergence toward December expiry rather than a sign of market fragmentation. Together, these signals confirm that spreads held within healthy ranges, correlation remained near perfect, and infrastructure absorbed stress without breaking.
Key implications: November was a liquidity reset. The market compressed 10 months of volatility into 30 days, flushed late-cycle speculation, and set up for cleaner price action into year-end. Bitget's interconnected offerings proved its value precisely when markets needed it most: tight spreads, aligned prices, and orderly execution even at -36% from ATH.
Conclusion
2025 marked Bitcoin's transition from speculative asset to structured market and with it, a shift in what separates winners from the average traders. The year began with ETF euphoria and ended with basis compression, a textbook lifecycle of a maturing instrument. But beneath the price action, 2025 exposed the cost of emotion: retail bought January's $109K distribution top (driven by FOMO), panic-sold April's $74K capitulation (driven by fear), and chased October's $126K false peak (driven by greed). Each time, the structural signals said otherwise; perp basis stayed negative, delivery premiums compressed, volume spiked without follow-through.
What worked in previous cycles, e.g. buy dips, hodl through volatility or wait for retail FOMO, no longer captures the full picture. Today's winners understand that emotional decisions have quantifiable costs. Buying at distribution tops instead of waiting for a negative basis can translate into a 15-20% opportunity cost. Panic-selling at capitulation instead of watching for volume spikes at support could mean another 10-15% left on the table. Crypto’s rule of thumb never changes: emotional trading is expensive trading.
How we traded Bitcoin in 2025 has certainly changed, though. The asset matured from "number go up" narratives to structural alpha. Funding rates, basis spreads, and premium compression are telling you what smart money is doing before the majority realizes what happened. If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that Bitcoin’s evolution is now as much about market microstructure as macro narrative.
As regulatory clarity deepens and institutional participation expands, the requirement for transparent and resilient mechanisms of price discovery becomes indispensable. Bitget’s integrated spot-perpetual-delivery infrastructure functions as a system that reveals the underlying process of their formation in that spot markets establish the reference level, perpetual contracts reflect hedging sentiment through basis, and delivery futures convey forward conviction via premium. When these instruments trade concurrently within an environment of open data flows, the process of price discovery becomes verifiable under any market conditions. For example, despite extreme volatility in November, the perpetual basis remained stable within 4bps, delivery premiums compressed in a predictable trajectory toward expiry, and no evidence of market fragmentation was observed. Traders didn't have to trust the quote since they could see how it formed across instruments in real-time. In contemporary markets characterized by both heightened speed and demands for transparency, only venues capable of offering observable and stress‑tested price formation are positioned to attract and retain significant capital flows.
May your stocking be filled with alpha and your charts be free of capitulation wicks. Merry Xmas, everyone!
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